Miscellaneous Things Done in the Last Two Weeks

Went and saw the movie Paprika. Beauty of a movie about the dream and real worlds merging. But for all its artistry, I don’t think of it as one of the great animated movies. Extremely good, but not great. For fans of animation and especially Ghost in the Shell.

Saw the self proclaimed “King of Country Western Troubadours” Unknown Hinson at the Earl. He definitely deserve the term “guitar virtuoso.”

Did 4th of July with wife and friend on top of a Downtown parking garage.

But by far the best thing I did was attend the AV Geeks collection of bizarre flicks at Eyedrum. Amber emailed me and told me about the fun to be had, and it was the best 5 bucks I’ve spent in a long time. Strange school and industrial movie gems are curated by Skip Elsheimer. He presented the movies and ran the movie projector. The show that he put together was titled “AV GEEKS Greatest Hits.

“Telezonia (1974) Kids are whisked away by a manchild in white tights, so they can sing about using the telephone. Creepy, but not in the way that you think.”

If you got the time this movie is a great example of the full-bore weirdness that is a 70’s industrial flick with a budget. Starts rather normally, but don’t let that fool you.


“Crash Bang Boom” (1970) 10 min We learn about percussion instruments featuring marching bands, dancing kids and a groovy rock band.

Malakapaladoo Skip Two (1977) 10 min A cute film for kids about using their imagination or a clay-laced, folkmusic opus to hallucinogens? You decide.

Drugs Are Like That (1979) 16 min An attempt to warn kids about the dangers of drugs using Legos and a catchy song to make its point. Anita Bryant narrates!

Shake Hands with Danger (1980) 23 min A truly inspired film that uses a country music song to illustrate the dangers of working on heavy equipment. Some fake gore too!

VD is for Everybody (circa 1970) 30 sec A public service announcement that uses an infectious song to talk about an infectious disease.”

All of these are on the AV Geeks’ Greatest Hits DVD, which would make a great gift for lovers of the bizarre, fans of 70’s fashion and me. It I hadn’t spent all the cash I had just to get through the door, I would have grabbed a DVD or two.

You can also check out some of their publicly available movies on archive.org.

A Personal Monument: Adventures in Stone

The future prospect of having a long-term house has me thinking about a long-term project. A kind of monument to personal things, travel and life. I got the idea from a 70 year-old monument in the Smokey Mountains.


The Great Smoky Mountains Masonic Monument was built in 1937. The main idea of it was expressed this way, “…we conceive the idea of a Masonic Marker as a true symbol of the universality of Masonry, and therefore have requested Masons of all countries and states to contribute stones to go therein. Interesting stones have come from five continents, the isles of the seven seas, and from historic spots of nearly every state in the Union.”

A downloadable PDF of the Masonic Shrine Catalogue of Stones in Marker has drawings of each side of the marker with entries of every stone that was added to the memorial.

Many of the included stones have simple description, but some have long, involved stories. This is but a short part of one of the stones’ entries, “275 Stone picked up at Sira Mountain, extinct volcano near Aden, Arabia, where according to Major H. Wilburforce Bell in his ‘Romances of Aden,’ the Queen of Sheba conferred with Solomon…” It goes on, but that bit is some pretty good stuff.

Since we travel a bit, I like the idea of some sort of marker somewhere in a yard with stones added and embedded in it. A physical scrapbook, a collection of places visited with something from each location brought back and incorporated into it. Now, I doubt it would look like the monument the Masons built so long ago. It could take just about any shape.

My only concern would be having to move it if we moved. But I already have an idea for that…

New York Times on the Lilburn Temple

Just today, the New York Times published an article answering a question I had. What is this place?

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Lilburn, GA Temple, originally uploaded by Mr. Kimberly.

It is the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir Hindu temple on the corner of Lawrenceville Highway and Rockbridge Rd NW (Google Map).

The above picture was taken in April ’07 while construction was taking place. The New York Times article has a picture of the completed building and states that it should be opening about the last week in July. I don’t know what the decorum is for visiting a Hindu temple for a non-believer, but I do believe that I will try to visit it before leaving for Houston.

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Pictures of the temple ground breaking from the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir website.

About the Shri Swaminarayan Mandir from Harvard’s Pluralism Project.

Brochure detailing the temple project, with drawings and building details and descriptions.

Boom Camp: Where Was This When I Was Setting Fires?

Happy 4th of July.

As a young kid I liked setting fires and blowing things up.

Fires were often started by getting a can of WD-40, lighting the end of the straw and spraying. Instant flame thrower.

The blowing things up was a little more involved. Plastic model cars had firecrackers placed in crevices. I meticulously emptied Tylenol capsules and dipped them in a can of gasoline to make little gas tanks, which then had toothpicks inserted to act as slow-burning wicks. All things considered, I can out unscathed and with hearing intact. My dad as a kid was equally lucky. While using an M-80 to splash a sink full of water, blew the whole thing up instead, sending pieces of porcelain flying. He too managed not even a scratch.

So, there seems to be a family tendency to pyromania and explosives. The solution? The kid is going to Summer Explosives Camp! Where was this when I need it most?

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And no matter the gender of future kids, this will be bought when the need arises…


The Dangerous Book for Boys | Conn Iggulden, Hal Iggulden

Loads of Reviews from Blogging Parents

Love That Dick: Seeing Richard on the 17th


Richard Cheese. In Atlanta. Going. Happy.

Lounge covers of modern rock, rap and pop songs.

Seen him at least 5 times in Vegas, from big casinos to a hole in the wall. The man puts on a great show. Expect the same this time around.

Chocolate Fondue at Dantes

Last week, it was celebration time for my wife and co-workers of hers. Many of them got new jobs, which meant that we were all moving out of state to different colleges.

We decided that the celebration should be at Dante’s Down the Hatch. This is no normal dining/fondue experience. Being the second oldest fondue restaurant in the US, the venue is athe result of collecting architectural elements, niches and whole rooms. A nautical theme pervades the whole place, with sitting areas being either on the wharf and or the sailing. Inside the ship is the jazz band, outside it is quieter and in the moat live crocodiles that are Dante’s pets.

Since the chocolate fondue is only done once a night, Dante himself joined us to hold court for about an hour while the preparations continued. Conversation with Dante are both a catalog of his knowledge and experiences, as well as a barrage of questions aimed at all at the table. He learned about our jobs and college educations, and we learned that his mother was the last Montessori teacher to be taught by founder Maria Montessori. We also learned he has visited Siberia and Tibet. After the geography and education lessons, he went on to detail the involved process of fixing the chocolate for the fondue.

It’s 8-hours of folding the chocolate and honey mixture. And we were eager to get our hands on it. Soon enough, small vats of chocolate and a huge fruit plate arrived. And with that Dante left us to eat.


We were sitting in a savaged catholic bishop’s room. The fondue itself was not a single bubbling vat of chocolate, but collection of smaller pots withing easy reach of the 7 of us.


And this last picture was taken after 2 hours of eating.


All in all, a very good night.

Exposed on Flickr: My Pix

Two companies have asked to use my online pictures for site-related purposes. Its interesting for two reasons:

1) Being on Flickr means being on a site that people are using for business purposes.
2) The companies involved are looking to the internet community for free images that they would otherwise have to pay for.

Food for thought. For me at least.

The New Sound: The Noise in My Head

One of my big regrets having lived in Atlanta all this time is never hitting the Decatur Social Club. The glitchy electro and French dance the kids have been playing always got me interested. But I am old and wasted my young energy decades ago and don’t have any to spare now a days.

But it doesn’t keep me from filling the iPod with all sorts of hellacious electronic noise. My newest purchase, Teenage Bad Girl’s Cocotte off of iTunes. I’m a big fan of the huge, jagged -wave synth sound that’s coming out of France. Justice are DJs/band that has that sort of sound. July 10th has them dropping their latest noise attack on the states.

Does It Offend You, Yeah is an unsigned DJ who put out a great DJ mix (downloadable MP3) on London’s XFM. Also on my radar is Kissy Sell Out.

But the ones who do it most for me and the ones who I think are going to be around the most are Soulwax. After putting out a perfectly good album (Any Minute Now) that was better than 80% of the stuff released, the boy who are both a band and DJ’s remixed the whole album and created a monster that always pleases (Nite Versions).

So I’m older than I ever was and now I’m getting older. But it don’t mean I have the “oldies, but moldies” playing on the stereo. I’m hoping the neighbor’s complaints will keep me young.